Archive for January, 2011

“We will turn our hearts into steel, which we will temper in the fire of suffering and the blood of fighters for freedom. We will make our hearts cruel, hard, and immovable, so that no mercy will enter them, and so that they will not quiver at the sight of a sea of enemy blood. We will let loose the floodgates of that sea […] For the blood of Lenin and Uritsky, Zinoviev and Volodarski, let there be floods of the blood of the bourgeois – more blood, as much as possible.” – Announcement of the start of the Red Terror, 1 September 1918, Bolshevik newspaper

Following the Tucson shooting, we saw a lot of talk- and fingers- highlighting political rhetoric and the potential it creates for political violence. Predominantly, we saw the left blast the right with countless fact less claims that the shooter was right wing, or that the dialogue on the right from people like Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh created an environment that was not only intolerant, but fostered political violence.

Of course, as time- and the facts in the case- would tell, the left’s desperate efforts to lay this at the feet of the right started falling flat. First it was the comments from people who knew him who stated that he was at the least apolitical or at the worst, left wing; never has anyone who actually knows Jared Laughner claimed that he was of the mindset of the right. Then there were insights into his previous rants, where he seemingly roamed around anarchist premises like government control, etc. Finally we learned that he was ardently anti-George W. Bush and hated him with a seemingly special gusto. None of these things points towards the premises or rhetoric of the right having any real influence on this man. I had stated earlier that while I thought he leaned to the left, that it was his mental breakdown- not his political ideology- that lead to the sad events in Tucson.

Then I saw this story talking about real political violence that none of us ever heard about.

In September 2010 Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon was scheduled to speak at Penn Valley Community College in Kansas City. At some point, wearing black clothes and a bullet-proof vest, 22 year-old Casey Brezik bolted out of a classroom, knife in hand, and slashed the throat of a dean. As he would later admit, he confused the dean with Nixon.

As the American Thinker reports, Brezik lived and breathed the rhetoric of the left-wing miasma: environmental extremism, radical Islam, anti-capitalism, anti-Zionism and Christophobia, among others.

Apparently, on his “About Me” box on Facebook, his favorite quote comes from Che Guevara.

Our every action is a battle cry against imperialism, and a battle hymn for the people’s unity against the great enemy of mankind: the United States of America. Wherever death may surprise us, let it be welcome, provided that this, our battle cry, may have reached some receptive ear, that another hand may be extended to wield our weapons, and that other men be ready to intone our funeral dirge with the staccato singing of the machine guns and new battle cries of war and victory.

On his wall postings, Brezik ranted, “How are we the radical(s) (left) to confront the NEW RIGHT, if we avoid confrontation all together?”

Brezik marched in protest to the G20 Summit in Toronto in June 2010. He was arrested, charged, and deported. “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED,” he boasted.

All of this got me thinking about political violence in the United States and the origins of such. I found some things to be pretty telling. First off, two of the three Presidents assassinated since Lincoln- William McKinley and John Kennedy- were killed by leftists. Other Presidential assassination attempts include Franklin Roosevelt, who was attacked by a Marxist and Gerald Ford, who was attacked twice- first by an environmentalist and secondly by a left wing militant. Ronald Reagan was shot by a fellow who was infatuated by Jodie Foster. I guess this would make her the original Sarah Palin? Other politicians who have been assassinated include Robert Kennedy, who was killed by a anti-Israel/pro-Palestinian supporter and George Wallace, who was attacked by a guy who thought it’d make him cool.

But assassination is not the only form of political violence we’ve seen. We’ve also had a host of domestic terror attacks. A simple list of the most common include the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), the Sybiomese Liberation Army (SLA), the United Freedom Front and the May 19 Coalition, which sprung out of the Weatherman Underground and the Black Liberation Army (BLA). What do these all have in common? Well, ALF and ELF are environmental and all the rest are Marxist/communist groups. That’s really not surprising.

With the exception of recent Islam-oriented terrorist organizations, the vast majority of ideological terror groups over the years have been anarchist/Marxist organizations. The list of those is pretty long indeed:

Western Europe includes the Red Army Faction (West Germany), Communist Combatant Cells (Belgium), Direct Action (France), Red Brigades (Italy), GRAPO (Spain), November 17 (Greece), Popular Forces 25 April (Portugal), Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (Turkey), ETA (Spain). Latin America has its host of terror groups as well, to include the Shining Path (Peru), FARC (Columbia), ERP (Argentina). In Asia, there’s the Japanese Red Army, Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers, Nepal’s Maoists, India’s Naxalites and Communist Party of India, and the Philippine’s New People’s Army- all Maoist organizations. I won’t get into the socialist/Marxist tendencies of Islamic groups.

But assassins and terrorist groups who engage in violence make up such a small portion of the radical left. Surely it would be wrong to assume ALL leftists engage in violence, or even use violent rhetoric. Right?

Again, the facts paint the narrative.

What happens every four years that immediately demonstrates the violent tendencies of the left like nothing else? This one event, beyond all others, demonstrates the violence and intolerance of the left.

The World Trade Organization negotiations.

Of course, they don’t stop there. Try to go to a G8 or G20 summit and not get caught up in an anarchist/Marxist riot. No really, try.

Or what about legitimate political actors. Surely leftist governments display a civility lost on the people.

Three words: Great Leap Forward.

This was China’s, specifically Mao’s, attempt to realign the Chinese people away from the historical monarchial system and force it into the new communist system. Over 35 million people were killed and another 38 million were starved in what many believe was a Mao induced famine. 73 million people. Of course they were not alone, Communist Russia killed over 6 million prior to the Soviet Union’s purge under Stalin, which killed another 58.6 million. North Korea’s running count is around 3 million, though it is hard to tell how many have died from their current famine. Pol Pot’s killing fields in Cambodia slaughtered 2.6 million and the Soviet years in Afghanistan saw some 1.75 million people die. Vietnam, from 1945 through 1987- and excluding the Vietnam War- killed approximately 1.6 million people.

The list goes on and includes places like the People’s Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the Chinese Soviet Republic, the People’s Republic of Mozambique, the Socialist Republic of Romania, the People’s Republic of Bulgaria, the People’s Republic of Angola, the Mongolian People’s Republic, the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania, the Republic of Cuba, the German Democratic Republic, Czechoslovakia…

149.5 million people have died under Marxist/Maoist/Communist/Socialist rule.

The fact of the matter is that the Left has used and engaged in political violence for as long as there has been a political left. The rhetoric has routinely been vitriolic, emotional and inflammatory. One could argue that this is just a symptom of the movement in general, but I think that there is a little more to it than that.

Which brings us full circle to Casey Brezik’s favorite quote:

“A relentless hatred of the enemy, impelling us over and beyond the natural limitations that man is heir to and transforming him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold killing machine. Our soldiers must be thus; a people without hatred cannot vanquish a brutal enemy. We must carry the war into every corner the enemy happens to carry it: to his home, to his centres of entertainment; a total war.”

The left has set upon its mantle for iconic reflection some of the most heinous souls this world has ever seen. Leading this charge has always been Che Guevara, followed by Lenin, Marx and Mao. Rarely has there ever been a reflection by the left on the millions of lives lost, nor the billions of lives oppressed, by the premises and practices of these “liberal” icons.

We see, every day from the left, the personification of Guevara in his mantra of hate. We all know that if it wasn’t for double standards, then the left would have no standards. But to listen to the drivel emanating from liberal blowhards for the last couple of weeks has been particularly tiring.

The level of absurdity tied to the tragic events in Tucson continues to gnaw at me. From desperate political hacks attempting to capitalize on the deaths of the innocent to the failure of a few to just focus on doing their jobs; the only thing we’ve learned from this event is that there is scant little off limits to the political carrions in this world. That should disgust us all.

I would hope on nothing more than a little bit of sincerity, a whole lot of self-reflection and a renewed effort to appreciate those we love around us. So much for hope and change.

The Left continues to ascribe at every opportunity the mantra of right-wing to Laughner every chance they get- regardless of the absolute factual inaccuracies of the description. One idiot called Laughner’s believe in the subliminal use of grammar in mind-control a right-wing belief. Of course, this was the same idiot who was blaming Palin for the shooting on twitter, and elsewhere, before anyone had any idea who the shooter was- to include a name. And when the Palin meme failed, he swiftly switched over to blaming guns, because clearly his attacks on the 1st Amendment were not enough so he might as well include the 2nd Amendment as well. It’s a twofer really. I’ve documented the efforts of the left to not let this moment go to waste, but unfortunately, the efforts continue.

With all of this said, I do think we’ve learned a couple things about this, and about who we- and they- are.

We don’t believe the hype. 70% polled by CNN said that they do not want to see stricter gun control laws. Two thirds believe that there is nothing that society or government can do to prevent random events like this and only 25% and 19% think that political rhetoric or Sarah Palin, respectively, have a great deal of blame for the event. And by the by, the majority of Americans think Laughner should be executed for the deaths.

A Rasmussen poll found that 56% think that the media has concentrated far too much emphasis on political rhetoric. What’s interesting about this poll is that 74% of Republicans and 65% of independents think the medias coverage has been unbalanced, while most Dems think it has been just right.

And the “facts” coming out of the media are ludicrous on their face, and borderline fraudulent. This constant meme of right-wing this or that- Laughner was anything but right-wing. He hated George W. Bush, he thought that the government- not al-Qaida- did the 9/11 attacks and he was a registered independent who didn’t vote in the November 2010 midterm elections. Think about it, do you know any conservatives who didn’t vote in these midterms?

But what about them? Well, from Wasserman-Schultz trying to use the shooting to defend Obamacare, to FORMER Rep. Alan Grayson blaming Palin for overheated political rhetoric (now that’s rich), or the usual suspects of the left blaming political speech and second amendment rights on… wait for it… racism– the left is doing everything they can to milk this crisis for political expediency. And frankly, that’s more than a little disgusting. Unfortunately, its not all that surprising.

But the disingenuousness of this all doesn’t stop there. We’ve all been to memorial services and they tend to be somber occasions were we reflect on those lost and treasure what they gave us, as human beings, before they left. Now, a lot has been said about the Tucson crowd at the memorial, particularly in how it became, essentially, a presidential pep rally. If I had been a family member there, I’d probably have been pretty disgusted, but I won’t judge the crowd. I won’t even criticize the Presidents speech, which for all intents and purposes, fit the bill. However, as with anything this guy does, there seems to always be a need to poke the American people in the eye.

For starters, why the hell do you have an Indian Shaman do an invocation at a memorial service were the victims were all- with the exception of Rep. Giffords who is Jewish- Christian? On top of that, why do you use a “Catholic” Shaman? A non-prayer at a memorials service by a non-Shaman?

Or how about the t-shirts. First off, who was the genius who thought it would be a good idea to hand out t-shirts at a memorial service? To add insult to injury, why would you use old t-shirts from the 2008 Presidential campaign? And do we really need the slogan all over the Tucson bus stops now too?

There is nothing, and I mean nothing, sincere about this President or the Left. You and I are sheep to be herded and slaughtered as they deem fit. They will twist any event, they will tell any lie to get what they want- Power.

The Left has shown us just how much they really don’t care about you, me, anything other than their persistent pursuit of power. This has indeed been a teachable moment.

The old phrase goes “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” No doubt whoever said it first thought it was quite profound. It was stupid then and in light of last Saturday’s massacre in Tucson, AZ, it is all the more stupid now. So let’s see, someone needs to defend the poor innocent little gun. It’s gotten a bad rap. It’s not the gun’s fault that it falls into the hands of criminals, lunatics, suicides and klutzes who accidentally shoot their own foot off or worse. This is an absurd asinine argument. The fact is the way you control misuse of guns is to limit people’s access to them and control by legislation, their allowed use of them in a civilized society.

Well, the left is doubling down on stupid. After blaming the “vitriolic rhetoric” of everyone else for the actions of Jared Laughner, the Tucson shooter, they’re now off and away on blaming the gun. Of course this is a nature progression with the left, the criminal isn’t to blame, just everyone else who “made him do it.” It’s ludicrous, it’s intellectually vacant, and it’s not really all that surprising.

Calls for increased gun control continue the progression of the left’s mantra that no crisis should go to waste. After all, it is a golden opportunity:

Gun control advocates have suffered defeat after defeat and the majority of the nation today clearly supports the right of private citizens to bear arms and to defend themselves, their loved ones and their property. Second amendment opponents would like to reverse those trends and, for some, Jared Loughner’s rampage this weekend offers a golden opportunity to press forward with their old agenda.

But this forgets some real important facts. The Washington Post did a national survey, asking this question:

“Are any firearms now kept in or around your home? Include those kept in a garage, outdoor storage area, car, truck, or other motor vehicle.”

I am from Montana, so I can tell you that, of those households that answered yes, the number of guns in that home probably average 3-4. This is anecdotal, but you’ll probably see a handgun, one or two rifles and one or two shotguns. The population of Montana is ~975,000. So, extrapolating this out, about 563,000 people in Montana own a gun, and if my anecdotal observations are true, then there are about 1.7-2.3 million guns in the state.

The populations are ~600,000, 5.7 million, and ~10 million, respectively. We’ll assume just one gun per household, since I limited experience in these areas vis a vis guns. That means there are ~23,000, ~1.2 million and ~3.8 million guns, respectively.

Think about this, there are either equal amounts, or more, guns in Montana, yet its murder rate is a fraction of these other examples. The difference is that these other examples have a lot more people. And this is the kicker, the vast majority of these murders occurred in D.C., Baltimore and Detroit, which have some of the most stringent gun laws in the nation.

I am in no way surprised that those calling the loudest for the constraint of our Constitutional rights are on the left. After all, it has been those on the left who have derided the reading of the Constitution, heaven forbid we actually live by it. Gun control isn’t about guns, it is about control. The Fairness Doctrine and Net Neutrality are not about equal speech, they’re about censoring speech.

Anyone who thinks that liberals are about the liberalization of our Constitutional rights is quite simply deluding themselves.

The Left has been aggressively hitting the media to put blame for this event on the right. They, the Left, are deriding the symbolism of the right in the last election campaign and the anti-government rhetoric writ large as the prime motivation of the shooter, despite the facts, whatever they might actually say.

The above quote, from an anonymous top Dem operative, is pushing for the Administration to squarely blame the right with this. Make it their bag to hold. Don’t let a crisis go to waste. Now, one might be somewhat concerned at the opportunist exploitation of such a tragedy, I however, am not. Why? Because they’ve been planning something like this for some time now.

Ah, but why stop there? The Dems were destroyed this political season because the people were informed. It was not uncommon for constituents questioning their representatives, especially in townhall events centered on healthcare reform, to know more about the legislation at hand then their rep did. There has been a resurgence in public awareness of political issues, replacing an apathy that had settled over the masses. But no, the Left can’t have that, now can they. Thus we get the first effort to not let the Tucson crisis go to waste.

May I present, Representative Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY), “My staff is working on looking at the different legislation fixes that we might be able to do and we might be able to introduce as early as [Monday, 10 Jan 2010].” The Congresswomen intends to target, pardon the pun, high capacity clips and stockpiling ammunition.

Another anti-gun supporter, Representative Mike Quigley (D-IL), told POLITICO that he hopes “something good” can come from the Arizona tragedy – perhaps discussion on a new assault weapon ban, sales at gun shows and tracing measures.

But it doesn’t stop there. Why go after the 2nd Amendment when it was the 1st Amendment that took away your power. Thus, entering stage left, we have Representative Robert Brady (D-PA), who intends to introduce a bill that would make it a crime for anyone to use language or symbols that could be seen as threatening or violent against a federal official, including a member of Congress. “You can’t threaten the president with a bullseye or a crosshair,” Mr. Brady told Politico, and this bill would make it a crime to do so to a member of Congress or federal employee, as well.

Representative Rubén Hinojosa (D-TX) is joining Brady. “The level of discourse is out of control,” Hinojosa said. “Yes, I would certainly sit down with him and look at the wording and see how we could strengthen it. There’s a need to tone down the rhetoric that occurred here these last few years. In my opinion, I would support legislation, yes, especially since it has been directed at me and my party.” I just thought I’d finish the sentence accurately. Of course, why reinvent the wheel when you can throw in historical censorship. Representative Jim Cyburn (D-SC) wants to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine.

This has been the main “target” of the Left’s anti-free speech effort, Sarah Palin’s “Take Back the 20” which identified potential Congressional seats because it put a crosshair over Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), who narrowly won reelection last November. A Palin spokesperson derided- rightfully so- the politicization of the crisis, telling USAToday, “We don’t know (the shooter’s) motive. It doesn’t seem like he was motivated by a political ideology. Craziness is not an ideology.” Well, that last bit might be up for debate.

The notion of this is foolish though. The thought that you can’t use a hunting analogy, or “targeting an issue” in discussing politics is, frankly, un-American. We have a right to free speech. Period. But the notion that the rhetoric of violence has been coming from the right is just inaccurate. And anyone who has watched MSNBC knows as much…

Or how about the special one, Cornell’s School of Agriculture’s very own Keith Olberman, who said this about Hillary Clinton during the 2008 Presidential campaign season:

“Only solution is for somebody who can take her into a room and only he comes out”

Well that leaves little to the imagination.

The crux of the matter is this, the Left is trying to make political hay out this crisis by selling the people a bill of goods; the shooter wasn’t from the right.

Below is a log of “tweets” posted by Caitie Parker, a classmate of Tucson shooter Jared Loughner, beginning around the time of the shooting.

The AP, among many other media outlets, are reporting that his defining conviction was a mistrust of government, and that he was warped into multiple conspiracy theories. He was a Truther, believing the government was behind 9/11, and he believed in the New World Order conspiracy. His YouTube page listed some of his favorite books being Animal Farm, Brave New World, Mein Kampf, The Communist Manifesto, Peter Pan and Aesop’s Fables.

Hell, Giffords is Jewish, so his Mein Kampf favorite could be the driver for this as much as anything else.

But in light of the current efforts, this is probably the most salient point. Laughner met Rep. Giffords in 2007 at a Congress on Your Corner event in 2007. He asked her, “What is government if words have no meaning?” Apparently, she read the question and had nothing to say, and Laughner was angry that she didn’t have anything to say. Note the date- 2007. Note the event- Congress on Your Corner.

Did anyone know who Sarah Palin was then? When the words Tea Party were mentioned, did anyone refer to the national movement that swept the nation 2 years later?

This guy had issues with her long before Palin or the Tea Party showed up. If someone had to find an accelerating factor to his mental break, and considering his reported leftist leanings, I’d say the rhetoric from DailyKos far more applicable. But I won’t, because I think this was just an instance of a guy who lost control and lashed out. No one but Laughner deserves to be held accountable and punished for this.

My good liberal friend Rutherford Lawson decided to do a post on the new GOP decision to read the Constitution aloud in the House. It was, to be frank, quite disappointing.

So disappointing that I was in the process of putting together a post to refute it. However, professional obligations have kept me from it. Alas, my other good friend, Blackiswhite, Imperial Consigliere, felt compelled to address the stupidity himself. Well, as always, he’s done such a masterful job that my attempts to refute would be somewhat disappointing.

I HIGHLY encourage all of my readers to visit BiW’s place and read this amazing post. We Conservatives often cry the over-stepping of the Federal government and most of us have read the founding documents, but his analysis and articulation of the points made by both the Federalist and Anti-Federalists is, IMHO, without equal.

The U.S. Treasury website today reported that as of last Friday, the last day of 2010, the National Debt stood at $14,025,215,218,708.52.

It took just 7 months for the National Debt to increase from $13 trillion on June 1, 2010 to $14 trillion on Dec. 31. It also means the debt is fast approaching the statutory ceiling $14.294 trillion set by Congress and signed into law by President Obama last February.

The federal government would have to stop borrowing and might even default on its obligations if Congress fails to increase the Debt Ceiling before the limit is reached.

Some Republicans in the new Congress have said they’ll seek to block an increase in the Debt Ceiling unless a plan is in place to significantly reduce federal spending and unfunded government liabilities on entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

There is about to be a very large fight in the Congress over the next couple months, and it will revolve around the National Debt and the ceiling Congress authorizes for that debt. The fact that our debt now sits above $14 trillion dollars should not only give pause, frankly, it should scare the bejesus out of every man, women and child. $14 trillion divided by the latest census figure of 310 million, means that every person in this country shares just over $45,000 dollars of the National Debt. That’s right; the baby that was born 5 seconds ago is already financially underwater.

The second thing that should not only scare us, but as a nation in a serious economic recession, infuriate us is that it took just 7 months to increase the National Debt by a trillion dollars. That’s just under a $143 billion in the red every month.

The GOP is stating that they will not support an increase to the debt ceiling unless there are some firm spending cuts put in place. Obama’s top economic advisor responded this weekend to threats against raising the debt ceiling thusly:

This is not a game. The debt ceiling is not something to toy with….If we hit the debt ceiling, that’s … essentially defaulting on our obligations, which is totally unprecedented in American history. The impact on the economy would be catastrophic…..I don’t see why anybody’s talking about playing chicken with the debt ceiling. If we get to the point where you’ve damaged the full faith and credit of the United States, that would be the first default in history caused purely by insanity.

No sir, spending a $143 billion dollars per month that you don’t have, that’s insanity.

According to the left, I should be in good company. The smartest man to ever walk the planet said as much as me:

“The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. … Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here. Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.” Sen. Obama, Congressional Record, S.2237-8, 3/16/06

Well, that’s awkward. I wonder if Wonder Boy will fire Goolsbee over calling him insane. Really…

Obama is going to try and get in front of the GOP with his State of the Union address, and will likely focus heavily on debt reduction and tax reform. Which is fine, I suppose, but it’ll be nothing more than more talk. Obama has droned on and on about “fiscal responsibility” since he made the mental decision to run for President- hence the above quote- yet he has presided over a 40% increase in the National Debt since taking office.

Is it rank hypocrisy or just another in a long line of quotes showing political expediency and convenience. There is nothing in Obama’s political resume to show that he has ever been “fiscally responsible” with the people’s money. Calls and claims by him should be seen as such. Until he walks the walk, until he leads the effort to fiscally constrain the government that he manages, there is no reason to trust his words or give him credit for the actions and efforts of others.